


Hearing You Out

by Tziput13



Category: Ape Escape (Video Game)
Genre: Gen, Hurt/Comfort, One-Shot, Spiritual
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-04
Updated: 2020-07-04
Packaged: 2021-03-04 19:08:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,583
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25071406
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tziput13/pseuds/Tziput13
Summary: When Specter takes over the city in the present, things start to look grim and Spike is no more convinced it's a good idea to continue in his quest to stop him. Not when he is alone against the entire simian army, at least… but perhaps, he's not as alone as he thinks he is.
Relationships: Charu | Casi & Kakeru | Spike (Ape Escape)
Kudos: 3





	Hearing You Out

**Author's Note:**

> The names for the characters are based partly on the European adaptations of the games. In short: everyone except Spike retains their original Japanese names.
> 
> I'll keep writing for this fandom every now and then, I reckon. For now, have this little thing I've come up with lately while replaying the games.

There was always a chance that days in the city in the current month reached very high temperatures, especially in the afternoon. After travelling over the windy, cold peak of the Wabi Sabi wall and visiting the Ice Age itself, though, Spike didn't mind the hot weather that much. In fact, he was grateful that he was finally in a climate he was used to and not some odd thing from tens of thousands of years ago.

He sat on the edge of a house roof, looking ahead with his legs dangling down in the void, his hands supporting his body as he kept them behind himself. He just wanted to enjoy the moment of peace, forgetting about the entire ordeal with the monkeys for a few minutes.

…not that the boy could ever remove the heavy memory of that situation from his mind, considering the giant factory in the distance that was the current main source of mechanical warriors, armoured flying discs and other weaponry types for the monkeys in the present. In fact, it was not just any evil factory—he was supposed to storm this one. He put so much effort into disabling the energy storehouse of the facility back in the sewers, it was only fair that he kept it up and moved on to the next obstacle between him and Specter.

He _knew_ he needed to get there now, before the monkeys managed to get the energy back online… but he couldn't bring himself to _move._

He was just… frozen, unable to stand up, get down and rush at the thing with his trusty stun club in his hand.

Sighing, he put a hand over his face. What was wrong with him now? Why couldn't he simply jump down and get there to face some monkeys and capture them? He already did so for more than one hundred of those enhanced pipo monkeys. It wasn't really any different than before! They may have some mechs now helping them, but he'd had to face domesticated dinosaurs at some point, so what?

He groaned as he realised that the thought only resulted in making him more upset.

He still wasn't able to force himself to stand and move. Something about the factory in particular, maybe, or something about what that factory represented, something about that… or something completely unrelated. Whatever it was, it literally blocked him in place, and it was driving him mad.

' _C'mon, you idiot…'_ he thought to himself. _'You can do this. Just what is the matter, man? Get that stun club in your hand and—'_

"Spike?"

So immersed as he was in his thoughts, the sudden interruption had the effect of startling him. He scrambled back up, almost falling off the edge, then drew out the stun club and agitated it around himself, but he didn't feel the weapon knocking the skull of an unfortunate ape trying to sneak on him. He was still alone.

Alone as far as bone and flesh people went, at least.

"Spike, is everything all right?"

That voice wasn't the voice of a monkey, and certainly not Specter's either.

"…Charu? I—I'm fine, I'm fine," he managed to blurt out. He had completely forgotten about the fact that he technically was not completely left to his own devices in his current predicament. Not in absolute terms at least.

"Are you sure, Spike? I am monitoring your progress and you've not moved for exactly nine minutes and forty-seven seconds. Can I assist you in any way? Can you locate Specter's Factory from your current location?"

Even if Charu was the one talking, and her voice was fully neutral, Spike couldn't help imagining it was actually Natsumi talking on the other side of the call, her face contorted into a frown as she listed all the motives why he was slacking off instead of going and do his job, and how she was going to make sure he'd remember how to properly behave once she got her hands on him. Or the Professor, describing in detail the next area he needed to clear out and stifling him with hoards of words he'd never heard of before while detailing a special use of the newest gadget he'd offered.

Except that neither of them could talk with him now, because they'd both been kidnapped… and, technically, along with Hiroki, though the boy had also been brainwashed since kidnapping apparently wasn't enough in Specter's eyes.

It really was just him right now, alone against the entire army of the albino monkey.

Well… again, not fully alone, she had Charu. Yet… she was just a computer program. As much as the Professor had programmed her to be of help, there wasn't much she could do in the real world to help Spike out, not now that he was in the present at least, far from the time machine and all the other devices that let Charu assist him, the Professor and Natsumi.

It was ultimately all up to him.

Perhaps… Charu didn't need to hear about his troubles. He could fix this by himself, he just needed a bit more time to put his thoughts in order and learn back how to move. "No, no, Charu, I can actually see the factory from where I am right now," he tried to reassure her.

He adjusted the earpiece he'd been using to communicate with the Professor and Natsumi as he travelled through time. In the past, they needed communication beacons to do so, placed by the Professor in the past via in the form of hovering mail boxes they could call in and out from the laboratory via the time machine, but in the present, there was nothing preventing a direct connection: he simply talked with Charu via a common radio connection. "I… I am just, you know, eh… keeping an eye on the thing. I am studying it! To... to learn how the monkey inside behave and plan ahead."

Charu stayed silent for a second, and Spike felt a sweat tear coming down his forehead. "I see," she eventually said. "Just be aware that the energy for the main defences is more likely to be restored the more we wait, Spike. Please hurry when you can."

"Yeah, yeah, don't you worry, Charu, I've got this," Spike dismissed her reminder. Charu didn't speak further, leaving him alone with the issue he still had yet to solve.

Now… he needed to understand what was bothering him right now. He couldn't be… frightened, could he? He'd dealt with all these monkeys already multiple times. He'd fought animated knight armours, horrific tree machines and even pursued an angry mammoth all in the name of catching pipos. What was different about this factory?

His gaze fell to the ground. He… he wasn't fully sure about keeping up this thing with the monkeys, not anymore. That was a fact he couldn't refuse to accept, not anymore.

But why?

"Spike."

The only reason why he didn't risk falling off the edge again was because he was still standing by the time he heard Charu's voice through the earpiece again.

"What now?!" he exclaimed, momentarily forgetting about good manners. He realised it too late to stop himself.

"I'm sorry for chiming in again, but I have a request for you. Can you please take out your RC car gadget?"

Spike took a couple of seconds to process what she'd said. That was… unexpected.

"Uhh… why? We already completed the crash course for teaching me how to use that thing earlier today."

Charu didn't reply immediately, leaving Spike hanging for a couple of seconds. "A test of sorts. Can you please do this? It won't take too long."

"I guess…" he wondered what was going on with Charu—he couldn't remember the program acting like this before. It felt like she hesitated before replying to him now… did she ever hesitate before? Can computer programs hesitate to begin with?

Though, if he had to be fair, that was an unusual situation for them both.

Charu had always helped things out in the lab with the Professor and Natsumi, but she'd never gone beyond assisting with their work as far as he could recall. She almost always talked in scientific, formal terms whenever he was around to listen.

He and Hiroki would mainly go in the lab to mess around and kill time, so he couldn't say he was paying _that_ much attention to the work performed there in the first place… especially when their work stopped being about the wonder of time travel and more about complex explanations, differential equations and more things that gave him headaches and not much more than that.

Despite his mental doubts, Spike nonetheless complied with the task he'd been asked, producing the RC car gadget in his hands, the car itself in one and the remote controller in the other—one of his favourite contraptions from the Professor's genius mind, in fact.

"Please put the car beside yourself for a moment, Spike. I'll run some testing and contact you again when I am done."

He did as he was told, placing the gadget mini-vehicle beside himself on the right and sitting down on the edge again in the process, beside the car. Wondering if the remote controller was needed, he resorted to just put it down opposite of the RC car.

"I've done it, Charu."

"Thank you, Spike."

…that was it?

Had he checked whether Specter's apes had messed with the Professor's computer? He was sincerely considering whether the Charu he was talking with right now was a computer virus or something else. Didn't she explain like everything clearly and thoroughly? Why the lack of explanations now?

He looked at the car, unsure what to make of it, but eventually he got bored of staring at the thing and returned his gaze to the factory. Even if Charu was acting strange, that didn't change the problem at hand. And that really had the priority, considering that Specter was trying to take over the city first, and he guessed he had even bigger plans for the rest of Japan… or worse, beyond.

Now, what could he do to move in, and most importantly, what could _he_ do to force himself to move in? There had to be a way—

_FZZZZZZ!_

"EEEK!" Spike cried, pathetically scrambling back and away from the RC Car when he heard some distorted, demonic sound coming from it. He was sure the car was going to blow up there and now, or turn into an unfathomable beast—or both.

Except it didn't. The RC Car was still in one piece when he looked at it… well, if he had to be honest, he could only guess it, since he couldn't actually see it anymore.

Why?

In its place was Charu.

His eyes widened and his mouth hanged open as he watched in awe. Yes… Charu was there, sitting on the edge just like he was before, though her legs weren't left hanging free beyond the edge—she sat with her legs pulled up to her body, her arms resting on her knees. Attire-wise, she looked exactly the same as she did inside the computer screen, black uniform with the Professor's symbol on the chest, green hair left hanging on her back with headgear looking like giant headphones on her head. Only her customary pointer stick was missing.

But this wasn't a 2D image. This was real!

"H-how?!" Spike spluttered.

Charu turned her head to look at him. In that exact moment, she disappeared, and for an instant Spike could see the RC Car right where it was supposed to be. Then, Charu's image came up again, hiding the gadget.

"Spike… can you hear me?" Charu's voice said, coming right from her instead of his earpiece. Spike, still unbelieving, simply nodded mechanically.

Her image suddenly changed colour for a moment, losing details and appearing dithered, before going back to its usual appearance. As time passed, Spike started to notice that something wasn't quite right with Charu's appearance. She didn't look completely real… of course there was the fact she disappeared and reappeared from time to time, but there was some kind of texture moving on her skin and clothes, as well as her hair.

He slowly put two and two together. "Is this… a hologram, or what?"

"Yes it is, Spike. The Professor has been testing this hologram tech for a while, but the version he installed on the RC Car is one of his most recent projects, so I might lose the…" another disturbance over Charu's hologram went through her. "…tion sometimes. Can you hear me well? Any issues you want to comment on?"

"I think I can…" Spike scratched his head. "You kind of fizzle out here and there, but I can still understand you… for now, at least."

"I'll try to iron out the connection quality while we talk. Thanks, Spike," Charu said, smiling at him.

It was all incredibly weird, to see Charu right there in the world, even if it was just a hologram image displayed in front of him. Seeing her looking intently at him with her eyes… he could still _feel_ her gaze.

"Uh… so, I'm just asking, but… can you actually see me, Charu?" he questioned.

"Yes. The RC car has a camera and microphone-speaker system installed in it, paired with the hologram projector. If all goes well, I should be able to perform full conversations with you naturally and without further issues."

"Oh… okay," he eventually said. Charu turned her head in the factory's direction, and when he followed her gaze he was reminded of the task he had at hand. The one he was procrastinating.

Fact is… he wasn't sure he could concentrate on it with Charu sitting right there, even if she wasn't exactly there… but she was. And she wasn't going away, apparently… ugh!

He ended up sitting back on the edge, sulking. He glanced beside him and sure enough, Charu was still there, looking at the factory with a neutral expression. With those big headphones-things she had, one could've said she was listening to music, isolated from the rest of the world.

Perhaps she was really distracted and minding her business… but why wasn't she leaving? As in… disappearing, or whatever she'd do to stop the hologram signal?

Absorbed in his thoughts, he was startled when Charu turned her face at him yet again, catching him red-handed as he was looking at her the entire time.

"Oh, uuh… sorry, I was… uh, I was thinking…" Spike tried to justify himself while looking away.

"Am I bothering you, Spike?"

"You… well, uhh… I just… I don't know what you're doing here in the first place, Charu. That's really something new, you know? I'm kind of, well… unsure about what you want."

Charu _hesitated._ This time he was sure, because she saw her open her mouth, then close it back, her lips thinning. Either the simulation was very good at faking it, or it was replicating what was really going on in Charu's cybernetic mind back in the lab.

"I… I wanted to talk, Spike. That's why I asked you to help me with the RC car and activate the hologram feed. I wanted to talk with you," she eventually explained.

"You want to talk to me?" it did make sense, at least as far as giving him a reason for the AI's request mere minutes earlier. But that was bad news, because it meant she'd noticed something about his current predicament.

"Look, if it's about me putting a bit more time into getting inside the factory, I've already told you that everything's all right. I've just been thinking about how to approach that thing in the best way, that is all!" A half-truth, but not a complete lie either.

"Spike… I need you to be honest with me. You said you wanted to plan ahead, but you can only see so much from here. I can see it myself, now that I am here with you."

"Charu… I am alright, really!" Spike insisted. Inevitably, he was starting to feel like she was being annoying. "Just… let me do my thing, just some minutes, and then I'll be good to go."

The hologram now effectively showed that she was _staring at him,_ and he mentally wondered how that could happen if the camera in the RC car was placed in the car itself, well below her head. It was unnerving how realistic she looked, especially when she was looking at him like that—it felt like she was judging him.

And worse, it didn't look like she was going to let the matter go any time soon.

"Is it anything to do with how the factory looks, Spike? About the monkeys getting better at fighting back?"

"No, Charu, I mean it when I said I am all good." Spike stubbornly looked elsewhere, trying to show he didn't want to continue the conversation any further.

The attempt failed.

"Spike, I have placed a tank to help you take out the outer defences and gain entry. It's one of the Professor's most recent inventions. You'll be all right!"

"Charu…" Spike's fists tightened.

"I-I'm sure you can do this, you've been doing an excellent job up until now! Y-you just have to keep at it!" Charu's tone changed a little. It wasn't neutral anymore, she sounded like she was trying to come up with new replies at each sentence.

"I-It's not that easy!" he replied finally, turning hastily to glare at her. The fact both of them were stammering was something that was beyond anything he'd ever experienced, but he was too worked up to notice.

"It… it should be! I-I can calculate that you have a very high chance of making it through without a hitch, and once this factory is cleared, Specter won't be able to do much to stop you from getting in his HQ at the TV tower deeper in the city. Spike, I am sure you can handle this f-fine, I am positive—"

"I told you it's not that easy, Charu! W-why are you even telling me all of this!?" Spike shouted. Charu silenced herself, but he wasn't done. "It's not like you know _anything_ about what I had to go through in the past! I had to fight all kinds of creatures and monsters sent at me by Specter and his monkeys, I literally had to go through the tummy of some kind of prehistoric dinosaur that shouldn't even have existed by then! And it's not-it's not getting any better! It's not getting easier!"

He pointed at the factory in the distance as he lashed out. " _Almost all the monkeys_ in the suburbs and the sewers below were armed with guns or lasers, or would straight up try to beat me to a pulp rather than trying to get away. I almost drowned trying to follow one of those apes underwater! And if that wasn't enough, I was attacked by a giant mecha. That… that factory is full of angry monkeys, giant war mechs and I don't even know… I don't _want to know_ what else. And you go and tell me I can handle it!? Charu, you don't know _anything_ about what I can or cannot do! You don't'!"

…

Charu turned her head back at the factory, her expression completely and utterly neutral.

…

He'd messed up, had he?

Gosh… it wasn't completely his fault! She insisted and didn't know when to stop—even Hiroki knew when to cut the line!

Well… not always, but he'd learned to do so with time. Not the point!

He groaned and hid his face behind his hands. At least, that show had managed to let him express somewhat why he felt like this. Now that he thought about it, the fact that things were getting harder was probably to be expected, but not like this. Not when there was an entire army of primates looking for him and shooting on sight, now being helped by monstrosities of gears and metal. Just brilliant.

And he had to face all of that by himself.

_Gah._

He retracted a hand slightly to free his field of view and take a look at Charu. She was still looking ahead, but now she was scowling.

Oh, so he'd even managed to offend her. Great, now he could tell people he'd succeeded in annoying a literal computer AI. Way to go, Spike.

He really needed to apologise.

He took a long breath in, trying to recompose his thoughts, then straightened his back to look at Charu. At least, she hadn't straight up disappeared yet, so he could try to fix it before she did.

"Uhh… Charu?"

She immediately turned at him, her scowl disappearing and leaving space for the neutral standard expression, hiding with it whatever Spike could infer about her emotional status.

Wait, did she even have an emotional status?

He shook his head. "I, uhh…. I-I'm sorry, Charu," he managed to let out. "I… I'm having somewhat of a mental breakdown right now, and y-you… I mean, I cannot justify lashing out. I'm sorry for doing it, I was just… distracted, I wasn't thinking straight."

That was terrible. Charu's scowl returned, but she didn't look away. In fact, her facial expression changed fully, in a surprisingly natural way.

Was she… sad? Regretful? A combination of both?

"No, Spike. I… I am the one who should ask for your forgiveness first," she said, her head now looking down in shame. She raised a hand over to her forehead, as if she was trying to support it. Spike knew this was supposed to be just simulated, but it looked very real, enough real to make him understand that what Charu was saying was her, actually her as a person explaining what she thought and felt. As weird as that sounded.

Or maybe it was never supposed to be weird… he just watched too many movies and anime about cold and calculating AIs helping the heroes or playing the villain.

"I… I didn't know how to approach you and tried to stick to my original plan no matter what; which was, trying to cheer you up and convince you that everything was going to be all right and that you could still handle the current situation. But I didn't think about how you actually felt, and how pressing you was going to affect you. I… I've made a great mistake, now I understand that, and I shouldn't have tried to persist with it."

She looked at him, again, her face now deadly serious. "Can you accept my apology?"

"I… uhh…"

Charu's eyes closed for a second. "I understand if you don't want to. I'll simply leave you be."

"No, no!"

She opened her eyes and looked at him interrogatively. Oh no… not that look. He hated it when people looked at him like that when he wanted to express something it wasn't easy to talk about. It made things awkward!

"No, I mean, uh, y-you don't have to leave. I… I do accept your apology, Charu. But, I j-just wanted to say that I should say sorry first, because it was me who kind of lost control earlier. So, uh… I'm sorry. I didn't want to upset you."

Charu tilted her head. "Spike… Do you know how many times I have been called out by Natsumi due to errors from my end?"

Oh… he didn't, but he wouldn't be surprised if that was a high number. Natsumi wasn't exactly the type to hold her opinions to herself when somebody made a mistake around her. In fact, she was very vocal, especially with him and Hiroki. Heck, not even the Professor was safe from her remarks. He knew she just wanted everything to work in the best way possible, but she didn't exactly know when to slow down either.

Still, he had no idea Charu had a similar experience with the teenager.

"I am used to that kind of reaction," she explained. "It was very common when the Professor was still early on developing my programming and it was common for me to make mistakes in my calculations and memory-handling routines. Heh," she smiled weakly at the memory. "It took a while before I was able to _not_ make her mad all the time."

Then, she looked at him with a calmer expression. "You don't have to ask me to forgive you, but if you want to hear it, of course I do forgive you, Spike. I am not here to scold you, or anything like that…I am here to help you."

"Uhh…thanks," he said, not knowing how to develop further. Her offer of help felt nice, though the execution was perhaps not the best. He usually just wanted to solve things his way, without external factors trying to influence him.

He'd been called stubborn for that more than once if he were to be honest… and not just by Natsumi.

He looked away for a moment, pondering over his options. Charu seemed like she really wanted to help him, and even if he'd still have preferred to keep his thoughts to himself and handle his inner doubts without other people's help, he felt like he couldn't refuse to do so after literally shouting at her. He owed her at least a short explanation.

"So… I think I can at least try to explain myself a little… without shouting," he eventually said. "You think you can hear me out this once?"

"I'm always ready to hear you out," she replied. She turned her head back to the factory, which Spike appreciated since he wasn't sure he could handle being looked by her inadvertently studying gaze for the entire time. He followed her lead as he looked at the facility in the distance himself, trying to come up with a way to start his explanation.

"Okay… well, I think, uh… I think I'm not really feeling the whole catching-monkey thing like I did back when I started. I mean, I literally faced a dang T-rex and it wasn't that scary at all—on the contrary, it was exciting! But something changed after that. The monkeys started to expect me to come to them, so they started being more aggressive, more resourceful, with literal weapons helping them between bombs, guns and rocket backpacks. They don't just try to get away anymore… they fight back, and they do it hard. Not to mention the monsters Specter has created and sent out to get me… those things also got bigger and stronger as I travelled through time."

He sighed. "At some point, all of it stopped feeling like a fun adventure to go through. It felt like a, I don't know… not a chore, but still something I _had_ to do, but not something I liked, I appreciated doing. I still wanted to do something to stop Specter, that monkey still had my friend under his clutches, not to mention whatever he's planning to do now in the present. But… things just didn't get any easier. Pipos attacked me as soon as they caught eye of me, they had UFOs to use and laser guns to blast me with… and now that we're here, in the present, things are even worse. Specter has a literal army of battle mechs helping his remaining monkeys out. They kidnapped the Professor and Natsumi. They… they just took over the entire city, Charu, without effort… and I'm just here… alone, and I am supposed to face all of that. It just… I don't know!"

He frowned, passing a hand over his face. "It just feels overwhelming. I can't bear the thought of keeping it up at this point, not when I almost got crushed by that mech back in the city outskirts when I was looking for the sewers. That was just _one_ of those things! And now Specter has most of the city under his control, he's managed to kidnap all of my friends before I could do anything about it… Hiroki is still brainwashed and it doesn't look like he's going to snap back to reality any time soon. It-it's…"

Oh no… his eyes were wet. He quickly dried them up with the sleeve of his t-shirt, but that didn't prevent him from sniffing.

"It's… it's too much," he confessed, deciding it was no more worth it to try to hide how he felt, from both Charu and himself. "I d-don't think I can handle it anymore… there, I said it."

Silence.

When he looked at her, she found that Charu wasn't looking at him yet, but she was resting her forehead on her arms and knees, effectively hiding her face.

That was strange.

"Uuh… Charu?" he tentatively said, trying to clean his face off the best he could with his other t-shirt sleeve. "A-are you all right?"

He wasn't sure to what extent the hologram was simulating Charu's behaviour, but it did look like she was aggravated by something now.

"I… I think I understand Spike," she said. She raised her head a little and turned it slightly to look at him, though she was still resting a cheek on her arms.

Her face was a mask of sadness.

"I feel the same, too… sort of."

"Y-you do?"

"I… wanted to do something to stop Specter, Spike, when we realised what he was doing in the present," she said. "I warned Natsumi and the Professor as soon as I realised what was going on, but by then the peak point apes Specter sent to the laboratory were already at the door. The Professor instructed me to record the message for you and then hide my existence from the apes. I… I didn't want to do that."

Charu let out a sigh. "I tried to convince him to reconsider, to revaluate our options. I could… distract the apes while he and Natsumi found a way out. But he was firmly convinced that this was a bad idea, he was sure the apes would be able to capture them regardless and wanted to give you and me instructions on what to do, after they were caught. I… I had to cut my feed on the labs' screens and just watch in silence as the apes got in the lab and took them away… and I couldn't do anything to stop them."

Spike watched in awe as she saw a virtual tear come out of the AI girl's eye. "I… I did not… appreciate it. It… it _haunts_ me… even now."

She was silent after that, and Spike didn't know how to reply. How was he supposed to reply in the first place? Charu had showed him emotions he didn't know she could even have before today in the past few minutes, alright, but this?

"Charu… I, er… wow. I-I'm sorry that happened to you…" he managed to somehow wheeze out. Again, not his best line.

Her eyes were still fixed on him, but this once Spike forced himself to bear her gaze.

"Thank you…" she let out, almost whispered. "It… it was hard for me to process it… at first, I didn't know what to do. I thought we had everything under control, but this… this completely changed things. It… it made me think about options I should've never considered in the first place. It made me… evaluate the possibility of just… giving up."

Charu's eyes became unfocused as she kept talking. "But I couldn't bear the thought of leaving you alone either, or letting the Professor or Natsumi down. I managed to understand why things played out the way they did… and I realised that there was no other option really viable, as the Professor told me. It wasn't just that what let me put behind myself those dark thoughts I had, though. It wasn't a failsafe line of code, either. It was the fact that I understood I couldn't just stop and let this serious situation be. I had to play my part, and even if I couldn't act in the real world… I needed to do something, even if that meant just continuing my role as a helper."

Charu raised her head and straightened her back, then fixed a determined gaze on Spike. "No matter how bad things looked, I had to keep up my duty in assisting you, Spike. The Professor and Natsumi both counted on me for it… you _needed_ some help when you got back to the present, I knew that. Even if I am just a little AI assistant, blocked behind a screen… I was still going to do it."

"Wow… Charu, I… are you sure you feel alright?" Spike couldn't help asking. "I… I didn't know things were affecting you this badly."

"You never could've guessed. I hid these thoughts… because I never considered sharing how I felt before. It didn't seem useful, even if it… it disturbed me. But now… now…" she once again let out a sigh. "…I feel better."

"You can say that again," Spike couldn't help letting out a dry chuckle at her remark. Guess the two of them had one thing in common in this entire ordeal. Charu's serious expression softened a little upon hearing his laugh, albeit weakly.

"Spike… this is why I think I can understand how you feel… but I still want you to know one thing. Specter is not undefeatable. I've come to realise this with some processing, evaluating his behaviour and comparing how it changed over time, but I'm sure you can understand it as well. Perhaps you don't know it yet, you've done so much when you travelled through time… why do you think Specter has tried to increase security and send everything he could muster at you?"

"Well… because he's trying to stop me, right?"

"Yes, that's it. He's trying to stop you and _he's failing at it._ No matter what he did, for each era you travelled to you were able to clear them out of a critical amount of apes. Spike… Specter is trying to make you believe he is still in control, but I think he is in fact scared by you."

Spike raised an eyebrow. "You really think so?"

She nodded. "He's running out of options now. He never planned the invasion from the start, he just came up with this new plan when he realised you just were not going to stop catching his apes throughout the time eras, and now he's throwing everything he has at you. And even then… you still managed to handle what he sent your way in the time eras, as well as the outskirts this morning. You managed to not _give up,_ and kept fighting up until now."

"But, Charu, that's… I don't think I can do it, still. Specter… even if he's running out of options, he's just not stopping either. I don't think I can keep up the pace…"

If anything Spike should've started getting used to Charu doing things he didn't expect, and yet he still recoiled a little in surprise when Charu leaned towards him, extending one of her hands. The entire arm disappeared for a second before returning, the feed disturbed by some unknown source of noise, but that didn't discourage Charu as she placed her hand on Spike's shoulder.

As expected, he didn't feel a thing. Of course… she was a hologram. In fact, with the hologram so close now, he had to slightly narrow his eyes in order to not get blinded by the light, despite it being still in daylight.

Yet… she was right in front of him now, looking at him with a look so serious she could've petrified monkeys just with that.

"He _cannot_ keep this up forever, Spike. He's running out of options, so now he wants you to stop first. Not just that… I am convinced he's even underestimating you, he still thinks you're just a little pushback for his plans and expects you to give up. _I think the opposite._ I think that you're much, much stronger than he thinks you are. And you deserve better than underestimating yourself."

Charu moved her hand up and placed it over Spike's head. Again, he did not feel any kind of contact, but Charu still moved it as to ruffle his hair.

"You're a good kid, Spike, and I completely trust you with this. When I said I know you can do this… I meant every word of it."

She finally moved back, retreating to her sitting position while leaving Spike with his own thoughts.

Specter… was underestimating him, according to her. But how could that be true? He didn't quite get that part of Charu's speech. He just couldn't see it… Specter had kept trying to send his monsters to aid his monkeys against him since the very beginning. He just started being more aggressive with the monster types he sent, along with the monkeys taking him more seriously, as he managed to capture more and more of his simian minions.

Yet… it was true he'd managed to fight his way out through all of that, somehow, capturing every monkey he could find and more. And Specter's sudden change of plans, with him turning his attention to the present, did indeed make him wonder just how far he really planned ahead.

Maybe… maybe he wasn't really as in control as he sounded, back in that castle… maybe he was just good at hiding how he felt, and he hoped he'd be able to get under his skin.

He'd been close to do so, as he came to realise earlier… but now…

"Y-you really think I can still do this, Charu?" he eventually asked. "Even if I am alone?"

"I am positive you will," Charu spoke firmly now, her hesitance a thing of the past.

He forced himself to look away from her, staring at the roof's edge while thinking over her words. He wasn't fully convinced that he could make it, not yet… but hearing her words, her now resolute tone, placing all of that trust in him after confessing how bad she felt mere hours before…

It was refreshing. As if the Professor had given him one of those energy cookies he'd come up with one time, and he had just bitten into one. It now felt like he could at least try to continue his adventure.

Perhaps there was one thing that he was wrong about.

"Hey… now that I think about it… it's not fair to tell myself I am alone," he said.

This effectively wiped off Charu's stoic demeanour, replacing her expression with one of confusion. "What do you mean, Spike?"

"I think that I'm not really that alone when you're doing so much to help me out, Charu… and now, you just managed to at least get me to reconsider my problem with this entire ape escape mishap… No, I'm not really alone."

Charu brought a hand to her mouth, her eyes wide. Then, her lines softened, removing her hand to show a warm smile.

"I'm always ready to help any of you out. But… but I'm happy to hear I've managed to raise your spirits," she said, tilting her head a little while closing her eyes, still smiling brightly.

"Yeah… I guess I should really stick with this and see how it ends, at least," he said, looking at his so-called next target in the distance. "If I get into that place and disable it, it should at least slow Specter down, which is progress. I can think later about what comes after that."

"You won't need to catch all of the monkeys either," Charu added. "I'll contact you once I see that the factory is offline for the time being, so that you can move on quickly."

"Okay… thank you, Charu…" Spike said. His mind was already focusing back on his ape-catching quest, wondering how many Black and Red pants monkeys he'd have to deal with this time.

"You're welcome, Spike. I think I've bothered you long enough," Charu said, abruptly. "I'll cut the feed now."

When Spike turned around, Charu had already disappeared, leaving only the RC car in her wake.

Before he could realise what he was doing, he suddenly cried out, "Wait, Charu, wait!"

She reappeared a couple of seconds later, the feed needing a few more seconds to stabilise itself again. "Spike?" she said, looking at him with curiosity.

"Uhh…" he had to put order to his thoughts in order to understand why he'd reacted like that. "It's just… you're not saying goodbye?"

"Oh…" Charu was somewhat perplexed. "I am always on the feed via your radio receiver, Spike. You can use that to talk with me anytime you want."

"Oh… right," he concurred. "Well… I just wanted, you know… to see you before you left… even if you aren't technically leaving. Or you aren't even here. Oh, forget about it…"

Charu giggled.

Adding that to the ever-growing mental list of things he didn't know the AI could do…

"I-I just wanted… ugh." Spike tried his best to reply, despite the embarrassment (he preferred not to think about the colour of his face right now). "I wanted to say thank you for staying here, and talking with me. It doesn't happen too often that I can talk like this with people… talking about your personal, uh, feelings on matters that are close to you, or even embarrassing. Natsumi would just make fun of me or not take it seriously, probably… and the Professor would try to convince me it is no big deal with just sheer scientifical logic, which wouldn't help me that much. I… I don't think I've ever talked about my feelings with anyone like this, not even with Hiroki, or with my cousin Hikaru."

Charu kept her silence after that, so Spike took the moment to pause and regain his breath.

"I-I got to say, it means a lot that you stuck around to listen to me, Charu, and shared your own thoughts on the matter. Even after I lashed out at you…"

Charu nodded, her smile returning. "You're very welcome, Spike. I'm happy to hear that."

"And, uhh… if by any chance…" he hesitated. He was really going to say this, was he?

"If I wanted to talk to you again… about, uhh… things… would you want to listen to me?"

She raised her eyebrows for a moment, then her face brightened up. "I would be glad to have another conversation with you. I'll be there to hear you out, whenever you want."

He managed to hum in agreement, the only way to preserve what was left of his pride. Somehow, he felt the need to do this, to ask if she was willing to speak like this again.

And her positive reply somehow was like a heavy weight being lifted off his stomach. He was serene now…

He sincerely felt like he'd never had someone he could freely talk with like this, and he didn't want to lose that.

As he scratched his head in an attempt to control his nervousness, smiling awkwardly, his mind came back to one unremarkable moment, a couple of months ago, when the Professor mentioned something about an old colleague of his, a woman scientist who used to talk a lot about a niece and nephew of hers who were brother and sister. Hiroki would then proceed to bask about the lack of a sister that could 'slow him down', giving Spike a chance to retort that he was just happy he didn't have a brother showing him up.

Truth be told… he himself had never considered how having a sibling would be like. But perhaps…

He gave a glance at Charu.

He may have just found someone who could fit the description.

"So, Spike…" Charu raised a hand, and waved. "Goodbye, right?"

"Oh, yeah… goodbye," he waved back. It was a strange exchange, as if he was instructing her how to actually wave at people.

Then again, she _was_ an AI. He couldn't expect the Professor to have taught her about _everything_ she needed to know to interact with humans naturally.

"I'll cut the feed now, but remember, you can still call me up anytime you want by using your radio," she said. "Good luck… and stay safe."

In one instant, she was gone. Spike remained like that, sitting immobile for a few seconds while looking at the RC car and contemplating what had just happened.

Then, he stood up and picked up both the car gadget and its remote controller, putting them back into his gadget pouch.

He started to walk towards the direction of the building from which he'd came, some wall sections that let him climb over to the building, as he extracted the hilt of the Stun Club. He planned to get down and head straight for the factory: the sun was close to start its descent in the sky—if he could deal with that facility before the evening it would have been perfect.

Charu had said something about a tank earlier… he just needed to look for that and then start his usual routine of fighting machines and monsters while catching rebellious chimps.

Not that different than before…

He still had someone who got his back, after all.

**THE END**


End file.
